Did Howe ever actually get arrested? I honestly don't know - he was suspended by baseball 7 times, including once for life (overturned 2 years later). time for tax evasion. I didn't.
Good question; I think he might have been, but wouldn't (haha) bet the farm...
You realize Steve Howe is dead?
Yeah, remembered that.
at least admitted he had a problem, something Pete never really has. Heck, Pete continued to go to the track religiously after getting thrown out of baseball for gambling!
Gambling at the track is illegal?
Itneeded to be said. As a Reds fan it was somewhat of a mystery as to how that collection of talent was ALWAYS 2nd during Pete's tenure. Quite frustrating. I'm willing to concede it's more likely he was a bad manager than dumping games due to his gambling, but the small probability of the latter is poisoning in my view.
Growing up in New England, I asked the same thing about the Sox and Patsies...
You are banking on the character of a guy that's now admitted to lying for what 15 years about gambling on baseball? While I agree, it's somewhat unlikely, if he got in deep enough with the gamblers...
Fair enough point and a concern historically for The Game (look what's happening in the NBA now...), but Pete Rose is the guy who flattened Ray Fosse in an
All-Star game ; I can't see him, whatever other character flaws he may have, betting/managing/playing to do anything but win. Like a salmon, it's in their nature to swim back to the home stream.
I'm not condoning it - I agree it's unethical & the real crime is the potential to drive others to use, and risk their health, in order to compete with the juicers. But I do see the irony that taking a certain substance to improve performance is verboten while working out to improve your game is condoned & applauded. There's a fine line there & it's not a shock lots of folks have crossed it over the years...
I'm just at a loss to see how you're trying to equate the two; it's like saying people who work hard all their life are only one step removed from those who understandably see bank robbery as an easier alternative...or maybe I'm just Neanderthalically dense...
To be honest I think what drove Barry to PEDs was MLB ignoring their abuse and openly embracing the McGwire/Sosa HR race and shunning Barry. At that point Barry said "OK - I'll show you what a REAL player can do on this stuff" and the rest is history. He certainly succumbed to the peer pressure, but it's somewhat understandable in retrospect. And Barry was still a legendary player prior to the PEDs - that didn't change. He can just go down in the Ty Cobb character class for great players...
Character, or lack thereof, is sometimes part and parcel of the greats; that blind, intensely focused mien needed to perform at a high level seems to draw les savory personality traits out of many true greats; still, as every parent tells every child, "two wrongs don't make a right". Hell, Barry could have been a voice exposing the sham, and drawing the contrast betwee his (then) non-juiced production and the juicers' production. Instead, he chose the path of least resistance and left his morals at the side of the path, instaed of taking them down the less-traveled path.
Although filling out the lineup card those last few years certainly didn't hurt!
Who would have left the historically significant chase for the hit record unfulfilled then-or now?
H
ey, if you want to defend Pete on the "he only violated baseball's most sacred rule as a manager, not as a player" card, I think it's relevant to point out there were suspicions of him as a player too. Nothing proven, but where there's smoke...
Suspicions aren't facts, even in light of subsequent revelations. Was the player -era investigation a betting on baseball theory or a betting in general theory. Just for drawing a parallel, Michael Jordan's well-noted foray into MLB was whipered to be a cover for investigations into
HIS gambling activities-perhaps an unpublicised 'suspension' of sorts for conduct unbecoming...the difference between Pete and MJ being one nearly universaly beloved, the other...not quite so...